Pope John Paul II was beloved in the Philippines, which he visited twice during his reign, and all over the world. He was seen as the rock star pope, with a papacy that was known for its close ties with the laity. And when his almost 27 year reign as pope ended in 2005, after years of suffering Parkinson’s Disease, the people gathered at St. Peter’s Square shouted “santo subito!” (“sainthood now!”) and called him “John Paul the Great.” With his beatification this past May 1, sainthood is now all but assured.

The Catholic institution of canonization requires a total of two “verified” miracles in order to recognize a Catholic as being a saint who can hear prayers and intercede for those who ask for their help. It is theologically important to note that Christians are not “made” saints by the Church, but, rather, recognized. Before one is confirmed as a saint, however, one must first be beatified. In order to be beatified, a candidate must have one of the two required “verified” miracles under their belt.

The Roman Catholic Church takes miraculous claims seriously—having, until recently, the office of advocatus diaboli, or the Devil’s Advocate, which makes a case against the canonization of a particular candidate. Incidentally, it was John Paul II himself who abolished the office, which expedited hundreds of canonization proceedings. Christopher Hitchens, when he was asked to argue against the beatification of Mother Teresa after the dissolution of the office of the Devil’s Advocate, described his role as representing the devil “pro bono”. The Church investigates miraculous cures and requires that, in order to be attributable to the intercession of a candidate for canonization, the cure be instantaneous, complete, and lasting.

For John Paul II, one of his necessary miracles for canonization came in the form of Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, who is said to have recovered from the incurable Parkinson’s disease, the same illness suffered by the late pontiff. Sister Simon-Pierre wrote the name of Pope John Paul II after his death on a piece of paper. The next day, she was apparently cured and resumed her duties in her order.

It is, of course, entirely possible that Sister Simon-Pierre was simply afflicted by an illness that had neurodegenerative appearances similar to Parkinson’s, but was curable. A doctor charged with investigating the nun’s condition aired out similar doubts.

But, even if the good Sister Simon-Pierre had Parkinson’s, what the Church is expecting its faithful (and the secular world) to accept is that her recovery was not a natural event. The Church is asking the world to consider that not only have the laws of the universe been suspended (let that sink in for a while: the laws of the universe have been suspended) but that they have been overturned in favor of the Roman Catholic Church and in a manner suspiciously convenient for its politics. With its pastiche of medical investigations that could earn a mid-season replacement spot on NBC, the Catholic Church purports its canonization procedures as scientific: skeptical and rigorous. And what could be more scientific and intellectually honest than concluding from an inexplicable recovery that a person who has died is now watching us from heaven and can help get our prayers to God answered?

With his recent beatification, John Paul II is now just one miracle shy of a confirmed sainthood. A confirmed sainthood would mean that the Roman Catholic Church believes on faith that John Paul II is, in fact, in a place called heaven, in the presence of someone called Jesus Christ. This is the level of pseudoscience, rivaling only ufology and homeopathy, that every believing Catholic has to swallow for each and every saint venerated inside their opulent cathedrals. It’s hard to imagine a bigger waste of human productivity. But for the sole political purpose of establishing John Paul II as a champion of the Roman Catholic Church and what it stands for, the recognition of his sainthood is perfectly appropriate.

Defenders of the current pope, Benedict XVI, cite Darío Cardinal Castríllon Hoyos when pointing the finger at the late John Paul II for the child rape scandal sweeping the Roman Catholic Church. Cardinal Hoyos served as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy and was in charge of priests and deacons who are not in religious orders. In this capacity, he praised a French bishop, Pierre Pican, for not sending the child rapist Rev. Rene Bissey to “civil administration” and congratulated Pican for being “a model of a father who does not hand over his sons.” Cardinal Hoyos revealed that he did so under the approval of Pope John Paul II and was authorized to send his letter of praise to other bishops around the world. Pican served three months in prison for protecting the rapist. Bissey was sentenced to 18 years for the rape of a boy and the sexual assault of ten others.

A good friend of Pope John Paul II, Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, “Father Maciel” as he was known, was the founder of the Legion of Christ. The pope described him as an “efficacious guide to youth.” Degollado used the Legion of Christ and his charismatic persona, targeting widows in particular, to funnel millions into Church coffers. The congregation’s assets have been estimated at 25 billion euros. Degollado had political clout with backers including current United States presidential hopeful Rick Santorum and the brother of former president George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, both noted conservatives in the Republican party. Father Maciel was honored by John Paul II in the Vatican in 2004 despite long-standing charges of sex abuse, which involved at least 20 Legion seminarians. As an efficacious guide to the youth, Degollado fathered several children, whom he also reportedly abused. The current pope, Benedict XVI, eventually invited Degollado to lead “a reserved life of prayer and penance”—apparently a punishment suitable for the crime. Degollado never faced any criminal sanctions and died in 2008 as a free man.

It was during Pope John Paul II’s reign when the late Archbishop Luciano Storero, the Holy See’s diplomat to Ireland, told Irish bishops that reporting the rape of innocent children to the proper authorities gave rise to “serious reservations of both a moral and canonical nature.” Under John Paul II, Archbishop Storero upheld that canon law was above the secular law of a nation, showing a characteristic Vatican indifference to state sovereignty and cries for justice by their employees’ victims.

Pope John Paul II maintained when the first child rape cases started cropping up in the news that it was entirely an “American problem.” Like many other claims by the Church, this ultimately proved false. The Vatican’s position on the crisis was, and still is, that society, not the Church and its self-preservationist policies, is at fault with its permissiveness and “hyper-inflated” sexuality.

Society’s permissiveness apparently drove John Paul the Great to allow Hans Cardinal Hermann Groer, who molested over 2,000 boys (a number so large that it retains almost no meaning) to hide from police in a nunnery. Cardinal Groer eventually died there without being prosecuted for his crimes. Of course, the Church’s repressive Victorian attitudes towards sex, which were strengthened by Humanae Vitae and Persona Humana and reiterated in the Pope’s own The Splendour of Truth, which put the use of contraceptives on par with genocide, were not to blame for its systemic problem with sins against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue.

Pope John Paul II reinforced the old boys’ club of puritans and conservatives in the Catholic Church by having papal nuncios spy on clerics and recommend only for promotion to bishop those who were strongly against contraceptives. John Paul II’s policy of narrow-mindedness was crucial in the assembly of retrograde anachronisms that comprise the CBCP, as well as the other institutions that make up the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy we have today. This is his legacy to the world.

Filipino pilgrims led by Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales watched Pope John Paul II’s beatification ceremony this past May 1. It was their homage to a man who was indeed loved by Filipinos. While Pope John Paul II was undeniably a man who argued for peace and acted to heal religious strife between mutually contradictory faiths, he was also instrumental in the continued suffering of innocent children and the continued impunity enjoyed by child rapists in the Church. And because this moral inconsistency seems to be the spirit that guides the Church he left behind, there really is no one else better suited for sainthood than the Blessed John Paul II.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions in this post do not necessarily represent the position of the Filipino Freethinkers.

John Paul II is credited by Western neo-conservatives and the corporate media with having contributed to the downfall of East European communism in 1989 through the sheer force of his moral authority. However, the Pope’s victory over the church’s progressive dissidents and communism proved pyrrhic. More than a decade after John Paul II blessed the restoration of capitalism in Poland, a public opinion survey in 2002 by the Public Opinion Research Centre (CBOS) found that 56% of Poles said their lives were "better" under the Stalinist regime of Edward Gierek in the seventies than they are under unrestrained capitalism in the early 21st century. Furthermore, Poles proved to be mere nominal Catholics as they expressed resentment over renewed church interventionism in matters of morality as well as lifestyle preference.
In the Balkans, Aloysius Stepinac’s vision of a new Catholic Croatia was posthumously realized, at the price of ethnic strife, civil war and Yugoslavia’s dismemberment, aided by NATO’s military intervention and aerial bombardment. Stepinac (b.1898-d.1960) was a Croatian bishop (1937-1960), whom the Vatican declared a martyr for his lifetime parish-confinement and alleged murder by the Yugoslav communists. In fact, the bishop was tried and convicted for war crimes and wartime collaboration with the Nazi German-sponsored Ustashe (“Rise Up”) regime of Anton Pavelic which slaughtered some 700,000 Orthodox Christian Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and Communists during World War 2. Stepinac lauded the creation of the Croatian fascist state as heaven-sent and secured the incorporation of Catholic doctrines into state law in the Ustashe-controlled parliament. The Vatican washed its hands of the widespread clergy participation in Ustashe’s campaign of ethnic cleansing and forced conversions to Catholicism, but helped the dictator Anton Pavelic escape to Peronist Argentina and evade prosecution for his war crimes. Though Yugoslav authorities repeatedly offered to relinquish Stepinac unto Vatican’s custody, the Vatican repeatedly declined this offer in its resolve to make a martyr out of the bishop and to sow Catholic unrest in Yugoslavia. (Sources: Edmond Paris, Genocide in Satellite Croatia, 1941-1945 [American Institute for Balkan Affairs, 1961] and How the Catholic Church United with Local Nazis to Run Croatia during World War II: The Case of Archbishop Stepinac [Embassy of the Federal Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia, Washington, DC, 1947])
To John Paul II’s chagrin, new variants of socialism blossomed forth in Chavez’s Venezuela, Evo Morales’ Bolivia and Lula’s (later Dilma Rousseff) Brazil – former bulwarks of Catholicism as well as seedbeds of revolutionary social movements. Apart from losing many of its conscientious members to the aforementioned secular movements, Catholicism suffered significant declines in membership, due to the U.S. elite’s deployment of various evangelical and pentecostal sects to win religious people over to a conservative, individualistic and capitalism-friendly brand of Christianity. Where once priests appealed to their flock’s conscience with sermons on the values of social justice, gainful and honest labor and love of one’s neighbor, there now proliferated self-styled pastors and lay preachers who attract crowds with their gospel of prosperity, modern pop music, healing rituals, “speaking in tongues” orgies and promises of earthly remuneration for generous tithes and donations, multiplied several times over. Only in Africa (note: Africa is one of Vatican’s priority evangelization areas; given Africa’s chronic HIV problem, it is no wonder that Pope Benedict grudgingly condoned the use of condoms against STDs in one unguarded moment) and in the Philippines, does Catholicism seem to enjoy much of its old mystique, owing no doubt to its vast and long-established network of schools, charities, lay volunteer associations, wealthy patrons, ties with OFWs in non-Catholic countries and its significant minority of progressive clerics who had contributed to the anti-dictatorship struggle and who continue their advocacy work on various social issues. Even then, the Catholic Church has to endure the likes of businessman-preacher Mike Velarde to rekindle devotion among a huge segment of the faithful who would have been won over by sweet-talking, crowd-pandering and dollar-waving evangelists.

A brief review of the life, work and milieu of some 20th century religious figures chosen for beatification and canonization should drive home our point about the dangers of saint-making.

JOSE MARIA ESCRIVA DE BALAGUER (1902-1975) distinguished himself as an ascetic, world-wise and militant defender of the Catholic faith long before his organization, the Opus Dei received the status of a personal prelature (i.e., an autonomous organization directly accountable to the Pope and not the bishops) from John Paul II in 1982. A cult-like organization, the Opus Dei internalized many of the personal attributes and class values of its founder such as authoritarianism, ascetism, religious dogmatism, elitism and hatred of democratic and socialist ideals. Opus Dei members were enjoined to wear a barbwire-like device around their thighs, engage in self-flagellation and secure a permit from their superiors just to read books and watch movies blacklisted by their organization, as penitence for their sins and as means of discouraging prurient thoughts. True to his convictions, Escriva became a staunch supporter of Falange leader Francisco Franco during the civil war of 1937-1939 and remained so throughout Franco’s career as dictator for life from 1939 up to 1975. The Opus Dei continued the work of its founder by collaborating with right-wing political groups and corporate business leaders throughout the world, through engagement in higher education, values-formation programs, backdoor dealing, as well as intensive recruitment, indoctrination and grooming of professionals for targeted government and business positions. Like his role model Escriva, John Paul II never apologized for the church’s support of Franco nor did he ever condemn Franco’s bombing of Spain’s civilian population with the aid of Nazi German pilots and post-civil war abduction of children of imprisoned or slain republicans and their forced adoption by families designated by Falange authorities.(Sources: Vicente Navarro, “Opus Dei & John Paul II” CounterPunch, April 8, 2005; and Vicente Navarro, “The Case of Spain: A Forgotten Genocide” CounterPunch, December 16, 2008)

MOTHER TERESA (1910-1997), an Albanian-born nun, attained repute as a missionary of charity to the indigent and disease-afflicted in the leftist stronghold of Kolkata India as well as a champion of the rights of the unborn. Mother Teresa celebrated pain as a means of communing with Jesus and duly inflicted this therapy on the patients of her clinic through the denial of pain-killers, use of recycled syringes, and unhygienic rooms for those afflicted with infectious diseases – facts amply documented by Dr. Robin Fox in the peer-reviewed British medical journal “The Lancet” and by Mother Teresa’s former associate Aroup Chatterjee in his book “Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict”. When tending to her own ailments, however, Mother Teresa checked into some of the world’s costliest hospitals for state-of-the-art treatment. While she sternly denounced the morals of those who engaged in abortion, birth control and sexual promiscuity, Mother Teresa displayed a remarkably indulgent attitude towards Catholic tyrants such as Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti and “philanthropic” criminals such as U.S. banker Charles Keating. When Charles Keating was convicted and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment by the Los Angeles court for defrauding 17,000 investors of $252 million, Mother Teresa went out of her way to request clemency for her benefactor, only to retreat in silence upon the DA’s counterproposal for her to relinquish the ill-gotten funds she had received from Keating in favor of Keating’s victims. One critic gave this apt description of Teresa: “Mother Teresa is a paramount example of the kind of acceptably conservative icon propagated by an elite-dominated culture, a “saint” who uttered not a critical word against social injustice, and maintained cozy relations with the rich, corrupt, and powerful.” (Michael Parenti, “Mother Teresa, John Paul II, and the Fast-Track Saints”)

Though I concur with Garrick Bercero’s criticism of John Paul II’s leniency towards child molesters in cassocks, I must say that he gave the Pope undeserved credit when he described him as “a man who argued for peace and acted to heal religious strife between contradictory faiths”. John Paul II was more than just a conservative pontiff concerned with preserving and peaceably expanding the Catholic niche in a world that had to be shared with people of other creeds and worldviews. John Paul II was a dyed-in-the-wool reactionary who spearheaded the reversal of Vatican II’s progressive reforms and turned back the clock towards an archaic Catholicism aligned with right-wing regimes committed to crushing social movements for popular democracy and social justice. Among John Paul II’s political alliances were with the Reagan administration and some of the most repressive regimes in Latin America.

While John Paul II encouraged anti-communist clerical activism in Poland, he censured progressive priests and appointed right-wing bishops to prevent devout Catholics from fraternizing with members of people's organizations engaged in the struggle for social justice, human rights, asset reforms and democracy. In contrast to the murder of one pro-solidarity priest (Jerzy Popieluszko) by the Polish police in the early 1980s which elicited a vigorous denunciation from the Pope, the murder of a hundred Latin American priests in about the same period elicited only a note of commiseration. Among the victims of Pope John Paul II’s right-wing alliance was Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador who was assassinated by a right-wing death squad while he was saying mass. Before his death, Bishop Romero had twice sought an audience with the Pope in 1979 and 1980, to enlist John Paul II’s support for a call to end state repression as well as U.S. military aid to the right-wing government at war against the Salvadoran people – only to be assigned to the end of a long waiting list well behind ARENA delegates (the legal front of Romero’s would-be assassins) and later reprimanded for taking side with people whose politics Vatican disapproves of. Though many Salvadorans hold Romero in high regard as a man worthy of sainthood, John Paul II banned any discussion of Romero's beatification for 50 years; however, popular pressure later prompted the Vatican to shorten the 50 year-ban to only a 25 year-period.

Though some people regard the Catholic practice of making saints as no more than a quaint and innocent means of fostering solidarity among the faithful in a multi-faith world, they should be wary of its potential for fostering regressive values and distorting historical memories. Though we may be unbelievers or mere nominal Catholics, we should be as wary of Vatican’s saint-making factory as the Chinese, Koreans and other victims of Japanese imperialism were of the Japanese state, when it once pushed for a history textbook revision that would absolve the imperial army of its war crimes in occupied countries during World War 2.

At the near end of his papacy, John Paul II made a show of his concern over global misery and strife through calls for a Third World Debt Forgiveness and an end to the US invasion of Iraq. However, the Vatican never attempted to mobilize mass movements and campaigns around these calls, as it had so effectively done in lobbies against abortion, contraceptives and same sex marriages. In fact, the Pope and the US bishops exposed their lack of real interest in ending wars and social injustice at home and abroad by actively campaigning for the re-election of Bush who made no secret of his intent to pursue America’s war against terror to its very end. Having aligned his church with the most reactionary elements of the late 20th century, John Paul II left Roman Catholicism in a far worse shape than at the time he ascended the papal throne.

Anybody watching the new series "The Borgias"?
Back then, those Popes in the old days really knew how to live it up…. adultery, simony, theft, rape, bribery, incest, and murder… whooowee! But nowadays, you don't even have to be a Pope to enjoy a bit of perversion, any parish priest can grab the nearest altar-boy or nun and get off scot-free from the law.

Pope John Paul II has just been beatified by the Catholic Church. That is a step toward being formally declared to be a Saint. From his writings and teachings, it is apparent that he was supportive of the concept of a nude life style. I believe that it would now be appropriate for nudist groups worldwide to begin a petition drive to have the future St. John Paul II desiginated as the Patron Saint of Nudists. (For those who believe that this idea might be too far fetched, remember even prostitutes have a patron saint. i.e. St Nicolas.)

LOL, I thought you were kidding but then I googled it up and its true! All the nudist forums were discussing the possibility of him being the patron saint of nudists, haha. I cant believe there's actually an org called "naturist-christians.org"!

The winning JP2 quote: "The human body can remain nude and uncovered and preserve intact its splendour and its beauty… Nakedness as such is not to be equated with physical shamelessness… Immodesty is present only when nakedness plays a negative role with regard to the value of the person…The human body is not in itself shameful… Shamelessness (just like shame and modesty) is a function of the interior of a person."

holey canoley! the vatican has 25 billion euros in assets? that's more than what the Philippines is worth! and what the hell are they doing with it? shouldn't they be spending it to make the world a better place instead of hoarding it like misers?

if that doesn't set off alarms in your head that catholic church is just one big money-making scheme, then people really got their heads buried in the sand… grumble, grumble… and all that talk about camels and needles…

funny name to give to their org, hehe… isn't that the name of the demon that Jesus cast out? with that kind of money, they could buy out Facebook… or even Google 😀 Imagine if the Vatican gained complete ownership of Google, every search you'd make would end up in a Catholic-based website

why do people often pray to the saints than to God?. Maybe in the end people will praise the saint than God. We all know that Jesus is the way the truth and the life. So we will just pray to God and not to the saint. That blasphemy because God has commanded that there is no other God before Him.

The official Catholic doctrine teaches, and I am in no way a Catholic nor do I believe in the supernatural, that Catholic prayers to saints are effectively the same as asking for prayers from your friends. If you take a look at official prayers that address persons apart from members of the trinity, you will see that they ask for their "intercession" and not the saint's power to solve the problem themselves. The charge of blasphemy seems unwarranted though the argument bears resemblance to arguing whether a Star Wars novel is in canon or not.

It doesn't really matter. It's like debating whether or not R2D2 was aware of the Rebel Alliance's complete plans throughout the entire original trilogy because he was never erased at the end of Revenge of the Sith.

I read the bible, and furthermore, I spent roughly eight years worth of Christian Life Community and Theology education from high school up until college. What do you think convinced me to leave in the first place? So yes, I do have "knowledge" of the bible, as does Jei.

Speaking of knowledge of the bible, how do you justify God's commands in Deoteronomy, chapter 7?http://www.christiananswers.net/bible/deu7.html
And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:

4 For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.

5 But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.

Sid, your God condoned genocide. When you speak of "knowing" about the bible, do you seriously know what the fuck you're saying? And since your god didn't mind slaughtering the Canaanites, does that mean you wouldn't mind mass murder too?

GOD can do whatever He wants. But rest assured He is righteous, He is very forgiving but doesn't consent either. He never takes back His words nor break His rules.

For atheists, your questions somewhat follow a pattern. Like this one: "Can GOD create a rock He can't lift?" The reason we can't answer this is because we define the rock as something He can't lift. The definition comes to mind first before the consideration of what He can do. Defining Him alone isn't just possible. What we can only do is give vague descriptions.

There you go. Think about it.
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Not all atheists are bad. I think they're more open-minded than most of us believers. They favor knowledge and realization over anything. All we got to do is share them some of our faith. Some returns to believing while others become non-believers. It's a cycle that can go on forever. In the end, nobody loses. I can keep my belief, you keep yours. That's all that matters. Only difference is I was given this obligation to make you believe in Him. And if He really does exist, He'll always give me a way to convince people before they lose all hope to what we call salvation.
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Sorry I got carried away. Some things there (probably everything..lol) is off topic. Anyways, tnx for reading through my post ^^ I exerted effort at least.. hehe

GOD kills and God HEALS.
He can get our life if he wants to. Because He Created us, except you! You Son OF the Devil!
You're the one who is SICK!! and not syd…
You are one of the Atheist believe in Evolutionist…
Theory Of Evolution- still a theory not a fact!
Can you tell me what is the missing link????!
No wonder and ugali mo pang hayop kasi kaw mismo naniniwla na xa hayop ka nanggaling.!! LOL